


broken signals

by skytime (inliar)



Category: ONF (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Platonic Relationships, Spies & Secret Agents, Time Travel, mentions of visions/voices in head (negatively), references to the mv storyline, some nice adoptive grandparents, traumatic symptoms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29650560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inliar/pseuds/skytime
Summary: yuto. two years ago, he woke up in a field, and now he is a farmer. his past was easy enough to forget, especially considering that he couldn’t even remember it in the first place. but it’s proving to be much, much harder to ignore.loss one. loss two. seungjun kind of hates how easily people can be categorized into neat little titles. especially since the people in question are more than just failed missions. he always hopes, deep in his heart, that he’ll find a way to bring them both back. but he’ll settle for one; the one he can actually communicate with.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	broken signals

**Author's Note:**

> this is the second of my two ONF fics that i started many months ago, but never got around to finishing. after a little more work and editing, i have decided to post this one as well. ONF comeback tomorrow, everyone!
> 
> tw // traumatic symptoms

yuto hates night the most, which is why waking up is the best part of his day. when he first started working, one of his grandparents had to come and physically shake him out of his slumber. but, now that his body has gotten familiar with the farm and its customs, he doesn’t need that anymore. his biological clock has taken to waking him up at 4:30 a.m. every day so he can start his chores. as his grandmother would say, the cows wait for nobody.

he doesn’t bother to wash up — he’s going to get dirty again, anyway — and instead changes into less comfortable yet more durable clothes. it’s still dark outside, and he’s too lazy to light a candle, so yuto just sort of mentally crosses his fingers and hopes his shirt isn’t buttoned the wrong way. not like it matters too much here, as the only beings he has to impress at this time are the farm animals, but he’d rather not look like an idiot in the odd chance he actually leaves the property area.

the chores themselves are so systematic they’re almost therapeutic. grab the buckets on the way out to milk the cows. one, two, three, four, and then bring them back in and exchange the full buckets for empty baskets. set the baskets beside the hen cage and go feed the inner barn first, lest the animals riot. fill the horses’ trough with hay. offer a carrot to one of them, and send a well-meaning glare at the other one who always tries to run away whenever he opens the stable. fill the cow’s trough with feed, and pat each of them gently on the nose for a job well done before heading out.

when he arrives back at the hen cage, one of the baskets is gone. sure enough, a familiar figure is crouching inside the cage, slowly but steadily collecting the eggs on the right side of the pen. “i thought i told you that i can do the morning chores by myself, now.” yuto calls, jogging towards the enclosure. “you should be resting, grandpa!”

“hush, child, i’ve been doing this since before you were born.” the old man says, waving a gloved hand in yuto’s general direction. “i know well enough how much work there is in the mornings. i don’t know why you keep insisting on doing it all by yourself.”

“you don’t even know when i was born,” yuto protests, grabbing the remaining basket and entering the enclosure. he squats by the left side of the cage and begins steadily collecting the eggs.

“at my age, trivialities like birth years don’t matter for those as young-looking as yourself.” the old man chuckles as yuto finishes checking the last nest. wordlessly, the old man offers yuto his filled basket.

he takes it with his empty hand and stands up to exit the cage. “is grandma sleeping, at least?” he asks, hopefully, waiting as the old man unlatches the cage.

the old man laughs, this time, a full bellied laugh that echoes across the open plains as he exits the cage. yuto moves one of the baskets to his other arm and single handedly fastens the latch behind himself. “son, i couldn’t stop that woman from doing what she wanted if i tried. knowing her, she’s probably waiting on these eggs to finish breakfast.” the old man says as they start their trek towards the house.

“she’d want to be awake at this time?” yuto asks, incredulously.

“that’s part of it. she’s always been the restless type, hated doing nothing when she could be doing something. but it’s also a habit. like me, and like the fine man you’re shaping up to be—” 

at this, yuto smiles.

“—she can’t help but wake up when the birds start singing.” he explains, fondly. 

yuto nods. “that sounds about right.” he muses. “at least, from what i know about her.”

“you’ve been here for what, a year now?” the old man asks.

“about two years, i think.” yuto corrects, not unkindly.

the old man exhales in disbelief, his breath forming a short-lived smoky cloud in the morning haze. “that long, already?” he remarks. 

a pause. even after all this time, yuto still doesn’t quite know how to talk about his sudden arrival. it’s too strange to ignore, but too delicate to talk about so lightly. 

yuto says nothing in return, watching the patterns his breath makes in the brisk air.

“but yes,” the old man continues, sensing the sudden tension in the air and breaking it. “you’ve been here long enough to have figured us out.”

“and i’ll be here for much longer, if you let me.” yuto says, smiling.

“is that so?” the old man asks, a note of pleasant surprise evident in his voice.

“of course? why would i want to leave?” yuto counters.

“well, doesn’t a young man like yourself want to go see the world? i was quite the wanderer myself, back when i was your age.” the old man says, a hint of a nostalgia lingering on his weathered face.

yuto’s smile falters as he tries to tamp down the sudden wave of _something_. vivid flashes of images flicker through his head, like an unwanted, corrupted slideshow invading the blank screen of his mind. a space station. a train. a meteor storm in the desert. seven white desks in a black room. a museum, at night, with alarms blaring. he shouldn’t know what any of these things are. why does he?

“i think i’ve had enough exploring to last me a lifetime.” yuto murmurs, pensively.

“pardon me?” the old man asks.

yuto shakes his head, breaking out of his trance as the strange moment passes. he plasters what he hopes is a convincing smile on his face. “i-it’s nothing.” he stammers, and then curses inwardly. stuttering is the opposite of casual.

it doesn’t go unnoticed. “are you sure you’re feeling alright, yuto?” the old man asks, concern painted over his features - which quickly morphs into the slightest tint of fear. “are you hearing those voi-”

“no! no, it’s not that, i promise. that was a one time thing, and a long, long time ago. i’m all better now, really!” yuto exclaims, rushing to assure the old man.

he doesn’t look convinced, but at least he doesn’t look afraid anymore. “if you’re sure about it, then.” he says, warily.

a lot of things go unsaid, but yuto understands them, anyway. 

-

he hurtles into the abandoned room and frantically rummages through a filing cabinet. he’s already been here for far too long, and time is something he’s never had enough of. but he can’t leave yet. not before he finds it. 

yuto doesn’t bother cleaning up after himself. no point if they already know he’s here. he shuffles through a stack of papers on the desk, allowing them to fall clumsily back into a pathetic semblance of a pile. it’s not here. it was supposed to be here. someone found it already.

a flash, and he’s stumbling out of a building. alarms are blaring, red and blue and loud and accusatory. “someone is here”, they seem to scream, insistently. demandingly. “find him, find him, _find him_.”

he curses and runs faster. spotting an entrance, yuto slips into a secluded alleyway where he’s certain he won’t be followed. yet judging by the hooded figure yuto senses a few feet behind, he couldn’t be more wrong. before the stranger notices, yuto unsheathes his gun. points it to the stranger’s forehead. cocks the trigger.

a flash, and asteroids are falling from the sky. his skin is dry, and his eyes and mouth sting from the dust.

“this is why we sent you back.” a voice says, echoing in his head. it’s hauntingly familiar, in a way yuto knows he should remember. in a way yuto feels like he’s heard countless times before.

“we wanted to change things,” it continues. the air begins to vibrate, the trepidation of oncoming disaster choking out his heart. yuto fights the urge to cover his ears, to collapse onto the ground and scream. “we didn’t know it would end like this.”

the voice resonates in his bones. yuto shivers, feels goosebumps angrily crawl up his skin. 

“come back,” it says. it pleads.

yuto frowns, shakes his head as the ground beneath him trembles. dimly, he recognizes that the asteroids must have reached the surface. he gets the funny feeling that, should things have ended differently, he would have died here.

“please.”

\- 

yuto’s eyes shoot open. it’s not cold, but he’s shivering anyway.

‘no’, he realizes with a start, he’s shaking. his mouth tastes like ash: bitter and dry and unpleasant and frighteningly real. he also sort of wants to cry. it’s instinctive, like his impulse to run away and never come back.

despite having spent an entire night lying down and doing nothing but sleeping, yuto is panting as if he’s run a marathon. (or as if he’s ran into an alleyway. ran to hide. ran to— _no_ ). his heart is racing. everything is dark and uncomfortable and much, much too fast.

‘breathe in, breathe out,’ yuto thinks, begs. he attempts to force his lungs to reset into a normal, functioning pattern. it takes an embarrassingly long time, but he eventually settles into something that can pass as regular. 

this is exactly why he hates the night. night is when he sleeps. when he sleeps, he dreams. and his dreams are never quite right. they’re too bright, too loud, too vivid. too real.

yet, yuto muses, the dreams are far better than the voices. with the dreams, he can squeeze his eyes shut and trick himself into ignoring them as soon as the day starts. he can busy himself with farmwork and gardening and chopping firewood to dull the pain. but he can’t ignore the voices. the variety of tones that echo in his head — a baritone drawl, a sunny chirp, a melodic velvet — all tinged with concern and saying the same sorts of things. “come back, yuto. don’t you remember? please?”

“no,” he wants to yell back, “leave me alone!” because he can’t remember. he’s tried and he’s tried, but all he gets are flashes of images that are too fantastical to be real. nothing in the world is as sleek and shiny as the buildings in his recollections. it’s almost like they’re from some sort of fairytale or alternate universe. which is entirely, completely, and utterly impossible.

voices in his head, visions in his dreams. neither are a good sign. yuto genuinely thinks he’s sane, and his grandparents do as well. not that he’s told them anything — all they know of is a single, panicked episode he couldn’t hide in front of them — but their approval means the world to him all the same. they took him in when he was nothing but a lost boy in a grass field who couldn’t remember anything but his own name. in yuto’s eyes, they saved his life. and he refuses to confide to them anything that could cause their honourable names to be tainted through association with a potential lunatic like himself. he refuses to say anything that could bring them trouble.

yuto is perfectly functional, if you ignore the fact that he can’t wake up quite right on some days (see: today). but no one else who heard his tale would think the same. it’s why he doesn’t go out often, and prefers to spend his time in the comfortable confines of their property. here, there’s no one new to watch if he has another episode. if he doesn’t want to get thrown into an asylum, or cause his grandparents any more unnecessary concern, he needs to eradicate whatever it is that’s screwing with his head. and if he can’t do that, he needs to be careful. but how much longer can he keep this up for?

he picks up a pillow and mashes it into his face. it’s the wrong kind of dark right now; not the fuzzy dark of dawn, but the black and shrouding dark of nighttime. yuto can afford to sleep a little longer. or, in any case, he can afford to try.

yuto squeezes his eyes shut and pretends that everything is okay.

\- 

“are you watching his feed again?” hyojin’s voice asks. seungjun doesn’t bother to turn around.

he feels more than hears hyojin’s footsteps approaching, before two arms grab the back of seungjun’s chair. hyojin leans over to watch the screen. “stop pushing me down,” seungjun mutters, swatting blindly behind him. 

“i’m only touching your chair?” hyojin protests, grabbing seungjun’s arms and shoving them down. seungjun sighs, but acquiesces and stops trying to hit him.

they stay there like that for a moment, sitting or standing, and simply watch the screen. yuto is looking at a pile of freshly picked corn in the candlelight. he picks one up, deftly unshucks it, and places it in a neat little stack that is forming on the side.

“do you want to go get dinner?” hyojin offers, unmoving. 

“i’m not hungry,” seungjun replies, eyes still glued to the screen.

“when’s the last time you’ve eaten?” hyojin asks. seungjun doesn’t reply.

hyojin hums, tapping a short rhythm where his fingers rest in the chair. “i know you hate it when i say this, but you watching him isn’t going to do anything.” he waits for a reaction, any reaction, but seungjun remains silent.

“this isn’t part of your job,” hyojin continues. “we have people monitoring him 24/7, and you’re the first person that they notify if anything happens. you’re not allowed to communicate with him while he’s awake, anyway. the CEO himself ordered it, so you don’t have the authority to override it. and we really don’t want a repeat of last time.”

seungjun pushes his bangs back with his off hand and exhales, shutting his eyes. right, last time.

_ragged breathing, quiet yet painful and entirely yuto._

_an elderly couple crouching in front of him, repeatedly asking him how they can help._

_his heart rate, his blood pressure, both spiked up to a concerningly high rate. his vitals alarm is blaring. the cameras in yuto’s eyes don’t reveal yuto himself, and seungjun wonders, with a grim sense of dread, how he’d be feeling if he could see the state yuto was in himself._

they really, really don’t want a repeat of last time. hyojin’s right. he knows it, hyojin knows it, and he knows that hyojin knows that he knows it. 

“the entire unit is worried for you. at first we thought this was a coping mechanism that would help you get better, but you’re only getting more stressed. it’s okay to take a break, but it’s not okay to keep working only to drop all your responsibilities. have you realized that you’ve left jaeyoung to single handedly take care of your team’s duties?”

seungjun curses under his breath, finally turning around. “ah, shoot, i didn’t mean to do that.”

“i know. we sent minkyun over to help him out. he asked me not to bring it up, but you need to realize what you’re doing.” hyojin says, jamming his hands into his hoodie pocket.

“it’s just—” seungjun starts, and just as suddenly stops. he flails his hands in the air a little, desperately trying to convey the hopelessness and frustration that’s suddenly welled in his throat. has breathing always been this hard?

hyojin nods, perfectly understanding. it’s amazing what over a decade of friendship will do for you. “take your time,” he says, patiently.

seungjun takes a deep breath. and another one. collects his thoughts into some semblance of coherency. opens his mouth.

“this is different from ... minseok.” he begins, ignoring the way hyojin flinches a little. seungjun feels the same.

“minseok was both our responsibilities. but yuto, he’s mine. and we didn’t even lose communication this time. but we can’t send him back to reboot his memories without his permission, and he doesn’t even remember how to give permission in the first place. i just have to sit and watch as he feeds some stupid cows or harvest some stupid crops! he is one of the smartest people in this agency and he’s farming? i just - ugh, i want him back.” 

seungjun kicks the wall underneath the computer desk. to his dismay, it barely makes a noise. he’s not any less frustrated, and he’s definitely just bruised his toe. 

hyojin nods again, seemingly satisfied with seungjun’s outburst of emotion. “it’s the first time you’ve been open to any of us in a while.” he comments, pensively.

seungjun doesn’t grace him with a response. that cheeky little brat.

“i’m picking up dinner. is jajangmyeon alright?” hyojin asks abruptly.

“what?” seungjun says.

“not a question. i’ll be back with the food in five minutes. oh, and i ordered tangsuyuk too.” hyojin states, pulling his phone out of his pocket and checking it. 

“have you forgotten that we’re not supposed to eat food around the very expensive computers?” seungjun asks, raising his eyebrows.

hyojin’s lips quirk into a half smile. “since when have you and i followed the rules when it comes to food?”

seungjun opens his mouth, and closes it. he chooses to nod instead. he couldn’t argue with that flawless logic even if he tried.

as hyojin walks out, another agent walks in, holding a clipboard to his chest with his arm. seungjun frowns; he thought he knew everyone in his division, but he doesn’t recognize the man who just came in. “are you looking for someone?” seungjun offers, tentatively.

“oh, no, i’ve just been stationed here.” the agent says, glancing down at his clipboard. “i’ve been told that tonight i have to monitor agent YO-425-83 —”

at this, seungjun stiffens. 

“— and orchestrate his dreams.” the strange agent finishes, unaware of the inner conflict that’s just risen in seungjun’s brain.

seungjun tries a smile. it feels forced and awkward on his face, but he hopes the other agent doesn’t notice. “were you debriefed on exactly how you were to do this?” seungjun asks, his voice restrained and thick. 

“somewhat, yes. i was given a file,” he starts, procuring a USB drive out of seemingly thin air, “and i was told to play the video into his memory feed. the rest, they said, was self-explanatory.”

oh. this is dangerous. seungjun should most definitely not sit here and watch whatever memories they try to feed into yuto’s brain. he’s not mentally strong enough to handle it. it’s one thing to watch yuto on the farm, where he is a completely different person who never knew seungjun or his life as an agent. it is another thing entirely to watch him be the person who he once was, only to have that fleeting image ripped out of seungjun’s incapable hands yet again.

but seungjun couldn’t stop himself from watching if he tried.

“may i monitor the process?” he decides to ask, rummaging through his bag propped up on another chair before pulling out his special badge. “i’m a supervisor, and this is a very delicate mission, so, as it’s your first time doing this, i’d like to ensure nothing goes wrong.”

the agent’s eyes widen. “y-yes, uh— of c-course, sir!” he stammers, fumbling over his words before dropping into a hasty bow. “i am so sorry, if i had known—”

seungjun raises a hand, backing away from yuto’s monitoring computer and gesturing towards it. “no need to worry, you’ve done nothing wrong. now, why don’t you set up the system? we wouldn’t want to be late.”

the new agent hastens to oblige, pulling another chair in front of the computer before inserting the USB drive and typing furiously. the password screen clears, replaced by the thumbnail of the yuto’s dream’s video. it’s black, which gives no indication as to how this is going to go. 

“would you like a headset, sir?” the agent offers, holding one out. “or do you not need to hear how the dream is going to monitor it?”

“thank you,” seungjun says, putting the headset on and noticing how it cancels out the whirring of the computers and other white noises. for better or for worse, he is going to be fully immersed in this dream.

seungjun holds his breath as the agent presses play.

it’s the strangest set of memories, and for once, seungjun has no clue what the CEO was thinking. he can faintly recall where the scenes were from, though, based on the stories yuto had told. he’s searching for the key in an abandoned apartment. he’s investigating a fully secured museum, escaping from the alarms. he’s running from the authorities, hiding in a not-so-abandoned alleyway as he holds a gun to changyoon’s head, not realizing who it is. how is this supposed to help yuto gain his memories back, again?

the scene changes once more, and the proceeding image sends a chill up his spine. seungjun curses, soft and low. it’s the asteroids; the reason why yuto had to go back and change things; the reason why he isn’t in this time and place anymore. if he could, seungjun would take to a space station and destroy every single asteroid that ever dared to exist. every single stupid chunk of rock that stole parts of his life away. almost subconsciously, seungjun switches the microphone on his headset to ‘on’.

“this is why we sent you back,” seungjun says, sadly. dream yuto stills, says nothing, does nothing.

“sir?” the other agent asks in confusion. seungjun ignores him.

“we wanted to change things,” he continues, watching as the asteroids get closer and closer to the ground. “we didn’t know it would end like this.”

‘we didn’t know that you would be stuck in the past,’ seungjun wants to add, but can’t. the last time they gave such a direct clue, yuto had an episode. he never wants to see yuto in pain like that again.

dream yuto shivers. for a second, seungjun allows himself to hope that his words are working. that, once this is all over, yuto will activate the ‘return’ signal like he’s always been able to do.

“come back,” seungjun pleads, letting the desperation bleed into his words. 

dream yuto shakes his head, and it’s with a horrible jolt that seungjun realizes the dream is coming to a close. before the moment ends, seungjun squeaks out one last word.

“please.”

the dream stops.

seungjun slumps back and stares at the monitor for a tense second. nothing happens. he pulls off his headset, gently placing it on the desk in front of him, and angrily swipes at the tears that roll down his face.

-

hyojin had driven him home.

he had taken one look at seungjun’s miserable state and the computer in front of him before piecing together what he had missed. hyojin offered a brisk apology to the baffled, new agent before gathering his mess of a friend and declaring the work day over. seungjun was in no position to disagree.

“take a nap. or watch a movie, or eat the jajangmyeon i put in your fridge, or whatever. but if i see you back at work today, i will end you.” hyojin had threatened before cheerfully exiting.

seungjun flops down on his bed, suddenly exhausted. he squeezes his eyes shut and pretends that everything is okay. wonders if, maybe, somewhere across time and space, someone out there is doing the same.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! if you get which music videos i reference in this story, i'll love you forever. comments are appreciated!


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